


Adventures in Babysitting

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: cliche_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-21
Updated: 2009-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It will not be for long," Teyla said, leaving the bag of provisions leaning against the table leg, and Ronon's nerves weren't enough to distract him from the fact that she was soothing him just as much as she was Torren.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in Babysitting

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to trinityofone for beta reading. Written for cliche_bingo for the prompt 'kidfic.'

"It will not be for long," Teyla said, leaving the bag of provisions leaning against the table leg, and Ronon's nerves weren't enough to distract him from the fact that she was soothing him just as much as she was Torren. "I do not anticipate that Kanaan and I will be away for more than three hours, and I am certain that you will do a wonderful job."

Ronon smiled at her with as much attention as he could spare from the vital task of not dropping Torren. "You sure there's no one else who can look after him?"

"Jennifer has several minor surgeries this afternoon," Teyla said, as smoothly as if she'd prepared these points beforehand, "Rodney is having his quarterly departmental review with Mr Woolsey, Dr Zelenka is engaged in a rather complicated simulation, and John is, well..."

Ronon shrugged. He took her point. He didn't know if Torren or John had been the more traumatised one after John's first attempt to change a diaper—it'd left them both pretty red in the face.

"There are several changes of diaper in the bag," Teyla told him, "as well as a change of clothing and some of his favourite toys. Torren's milk is in your refrigerator, and if anything should happen, Kanaan and I are only going as far as the mainland. All will be well."

"Uh huh," Ronon said sceptically, as Teyla stooped to kiss Torren on the forehead before patting Ronon on the shoulder and leaving. Without Teyla, the room around Ronon suddenly felt very small, and the weight of the three-month-old infant in his arms very heavy. "Hey," he said to Torren, trying to speak as softly as possible. "You want a nap, little guy? Naps are good."

Torren looked up at him, impossibly tiny hands flexing, and wrinkled his nose in a way that suggested he was profoundly unimpressed with Ronon's ideas.

Ronon wrinkled his nose back, and tried to put the kid down in his crib anyway, but Torren was more than just unimpressed with that idea—he actively objected, screwing up his face in an expression of reddened disgust and letting out an angry squawk that had Ronon panicking and scooping him back up again. "Okay, I get it, no crib," he said. "No crib, buddy, just—hush, c'mon, please?"

Torren blinked at him, and as suddenly as he'd started crying, he stopped. The rapidity of it stunned Ronon enough that he wasn't prepared for one chubby little hand reaching up and grabbing one of Ronon's dreads, tugging with a grip that seemed impossible for someone so young. Ronon blurted out something that would surely have earned him a pummelling from Teyla's bantos rods if she'd been there to hear him, but Torren just gurgled out a laugh.

Ronon was starting to reconsider whether he'd made a mistake not going on that off-world recon mission with Lorne's team today. He'd have had to sit through a lengthy discussion on grain trade while wearing a silly hat, but at least he wouldn't have been injured by a kid whose neck wasn't strong enough to support his head yet.

"How about we try for a nap together, huh?" he suggested after a moment's thought. It wasn't long after lunch, but Ronon had been up since dawn training some of the Marines, and a nap didn't sound like such a bad idea. That seemed to work—Torren looked up at him, a considering look in his brown eyes as if he was putting a lot of effort into either thought or digestion, before yawning broadly enough to make Ronon respond in kind.

"Okay," he said, toeing off his socks and shuffling backwards to sit on his bed. He arranged one of his pillows lengthways so that Torren could lie on it, then lay down so that it and Torren were nestled in the crook of his arm. The kid settled down next to him with no fuss, letting out one milk-scented burp before subsiding into fist-waving placidity. He was warm against Ronon's side, and for a long moment Ronon stared up at the copper-and-steel of his ceiling.

"Hey," he said after a moment, whispering so that he wouldn't disturb a now-drowsing Torren, "want me to tell you a story? My mom used to tell me stories at bedtime."

Torren didn't make a sound, but Ronon told him a story anyway—of how Mirec and Hithar, long ago, had journeyed towards the brightest star in the sky and called it Sateda; of the twelve saplings they'd planted where one day there'd be a city with a tree at its heart, a shaded place for children to shelter—and if Torren wasn't old enough yet to understand what the tales meant to Ronon, each bedtime where Ronon whispered some new adventure to him would give them meaning to Torren.

"Oh," Ronon said when he remembered the story of Liyra the herder and her long journey home over the western seas. "This is a good one! You'll like how this one ends," but his own eyes were falling closed as he started to tell Torren the story that had been his favourite as a child—and by the time Teyla returned, sun-flushed from her hours on the mainland, Ronon's soft snores were keeping pace with Torren's snuffling breaths, the promise of adventure kept safe between them, waiting for another day.


End file.
